


mistaken for strangers

by empressearwig



Series: Left Behind [2]
Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-02
Updated: 2010-08-02
Packaged: 2017-10-10 22:05:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empressearwig/pseuds/empressearwig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cam and Sweets don't go on a date. Really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mistaken for strangers

Sweets likes to think of himself as a keen observer of the human condition. He knows how to read body language and how to divine a wealth of meaning from a single word. He's a trained observer; knowing these things is his life's work. He doesn't really like to brag, but he's good at it.

And yet somehow, he didn't see this coming. He didn't know it was happening. He didn't know anything until he knocked on Cam's door and heard Michelle yell out, "Mom, your date's here!"

From the look of Cam, frozen still on the stairs, she didn't know either. It's oddly reassuring.

He sees Michelle looking back and forth between him and Cam curiously, obviously unsure as to why they're acting like this. He sees her roll her eyes and walk away, muttering under her breath. He can't hear what she's saying, but he can probably guess. He looks back up at Cam, tries to find his voice. "Hey."

The sound of his voice jars Cam out of whatever fog she's in. She shakes her head slightly and starts the rest of the way down the stairs. She doesn't look at him. "Hi."

He wants her to look at him. He turns to open the door instead. "Ready to go?"

She finally glances at him, offers him a weak smile. "Of course. We don't want to miss the start of the movie." She brushes past him on her way out the door.

He resists the urge to groan. And to strangle Michelle. She's a good kid, but _god_, he could cheerfully wring her neck right about now.

He follows Cam out to his car. She's already wearing her seatbelt, her hands folded primly in her lap. He slides behind the wheel and starts the car with a sigh. This is going to be a very long night. He can tell.

***

They don't speak on the way to the theater. It's not like them. In the past few months, since their friends (and loved ones, he reminds himself), abandoned them for far off lands, he likes to think that they've become friends. It might have started out because they were the ones left behind, but somewhere along the way it became about them, just the two of them.

(He thinks it was somewhere between getting her to watch all three extended editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and her teaching him how drink whiskey neat. He hasn't shared this with Cam. He's fairly certain she'd think he was crazy. Well, crazier.)

So the not talking is strange. The way that she looks distressed at him opening a door for her when they get to the theater is stranger, and he knows _why_, but it's not like he can turn off two decades of his mom telling him to be a gentleman just like that. He winds up holding the door open for what feels like forever just to prove a point, to her or to him, he's not sure, but the point being that he was just being polite and that it was not because they are on a date. Which they are not. When he catches up with her in line for tickets, she already has her wallet out, even though it's his turn to buy them and he lets her pay for a single ticket without a word, though there's a weird pang in his chest when she does.

He ignores it.

The previews have already started when they make their way to theater sixteen, and he's oddly grateful for it. He feels like the cover of darkness is just what they need right now. Maybe when the house lights go up at the end of the movie, everything will have gone back to normal.

Cam's knee brushes against his and she jumps what seems like ten feet in the air. He resists the urge to bury his head in his hands. Forget about normal.

He tries to pay attention to the previews. He ends up paying attention to Cam instead.

***

If this were a normal movie night, they'd head to the Founding Fathers to bitch about how unrealistic the special effects were (him) or how much violence the human body can actually withstand before collapsing (her), but tonight was not a normal movie night. He heads towards her house without a word, knowing that he'll need to say something when they get there, not sure what it's going to be.

An innocent remark has seemingly undone months of work on a friendship that's become very important to him; he doesn't want to make the situation worse. He doesn't know how to make it better.

He's supposed to know how to make things better. He wonders why he can never make things better for himself.

When they arrive at her place, he cuts the engine and follows her to the door. If she's surprised, she doesn't say so, just fishes her keys out of her purse as they head up the front walk. He watches her unlock the door, still not sure what he's going to say.

She turns around. He sees the apology written on her face, even as she's opening her mouth to speak. He decides in that instant that he doesn't want it.

He bends his head to kiss her; he's not sure which of them is more surprised. He starts to draw back almost immediately, but she has other ideas. She wraps a hand around the nape of his neck, tangling the other in his hair. She deepens the kiss; he lets her. His hands settle on her hips, pulling her into him, wanting her as close as she can get.

He doesn't know how long they stand there on her front steps, kissing like teenagers, neither of them making any attempt to make it more than what it is.

She is the one that ends it. She takes a step back and looks up at him, looks him in the eye for the first time all night. She smiles. He smiles back.

"Good night," she says, pressing a final kiss to his cheek.

"Good night," he echoes, watching her walk into the house, waiting to hear the sound of the lock clicking shut in the door. When it does, he walks back to his car, still in a daze.

He kissed Cam. She kissed him. They didn't go on a date.

He gets behind the wheel of the car and wonders when they can do it all over again.


End file.
